Types of Microbial Decontamination

Terms used to refer to decontamination processes are commonly used interchangeably, including “sanitizing”, “disinfecting”, “antiseptic” and “sterilization”. However, there are significant differences in the level of decontamination resulting from these processes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defined three categories of microbial treatments based on the level of effectiveness of decontamination; sanitizers, disinfectants and sterilants (EPA).
Sanitizing is the least effective decontamination method. Sanitizers clean surfaces of pathogens, without completely killing microbial populations that are considered to be safe from a public health perspective. Sanitizers can be applied on both inanimate (non-living) surfaces and live tissues (e.g. skin)(Mahmood et al., 2020).
Disinfectants provide a higher level of decontamination than sanitizing. The EPA includes antiseptics within the category of disinfectants. Disinfectants and antiseptics may contain the same microbial pesticide, which is the chemical agent that inactivates or kills vegitative microorganisms. The difference between the two is that disinfectants are used for inanimate surfaces, while antiseptics are applied onto live tissue.
The best decontamination method is sterilizing, which kills both vegetative microorganisms and their spores.